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Labor rights in Chile come up quite a bit at the Observatory. At Magellan, we usually have three telescope operators between the two telescopes so that they can switch off and thereby not work too more than 11.25 hours continuously. This week, Jorge is stuck with us all night though because Mauricio is on vacation. Luckily it’s summer here, and the nights are short. We have been working about 10 hr this week, from the time we open the dome to the time we close it (well, when I say “we open” I really mean “Jorge opens”). Labor laws also make it hard (impossible?) to hire employees who work at night sometimes and during the day at other times, such as, for example, a person who could do AO operation during AO runs and other technical jobs at other times.

Chilean labor rights don’t extend to University of Arizona employees (i.e., Jared and Katie), alas for them. They get to be those night AO operators here (though perhaps they work at night back in AZ too). Again, it’s not so bad this time of year, and they seem pretty cheerful despite the “Day 30” title of this post. Last June was a different story. To quote Katie, “If you’re doing 80+ hr of real work, you will absolutely burn out in 6.5 weeks. See 2015A.”

Labor relations have been on my mind today because the Chilean airport workers are going on strike tomorrow and Friday, just in time for me to try to get home. Laird Close arrived today and said the airport was a zoo. Lan Chile has cancelled its flights from La Serena to Santiago (and vice versa) tomorrow. Luckily, I asked the helpful staff at Las Campanas to book me a bus ticket. So even though I now have to leave the mountain at 8 AM after finishing observing at 6 AM, I should get to Santiago in time for my flight to Estados Unidos. And I’m looking forward to sleeping in my Salon Cama seat (fully reclining, like business class) for a blissful 6 hr.

Even more luckily, the air traffic controllers are not striking, so the international flight seems likely to go (though the fact that the American Airlines representative I talked to today claimed there were no disruptions at all just led me to think AA is clueless more than it led me to think the situation is fine).

Meanwhile, today’s been a good day. It was sunny, and this lizard and I both enjoyed that:

I also saw two guanacos, thanks to Katie who alerted me to their presence down the hill north of Magellan. It turns out they make a really interesting sound calling to each other. Listen carefully to hear one calling to the other (and look carefully to see one running).

This guanaco is also running — running MagAO that is!

And of course, sunny means clear!

The Devil is still the NE winds, which briefly caused me to have to abandon one of my northern targets, but only briefly. Ah, LCO, here between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

Wait, I hear a song coming on. Last night, Jared used “The Devil went down to Georgia,” which brings me back to Ella Fitzgerald, First Lady of Jazz, and one of my favorite artists to listen to while observing, relaxing, stretching after a workout, flying, and probably (we’ll find out tomorrow) taking a 6 hr bus ride.

We might make it. Alycia has one night left, and our next and last observer arrived today (get ready for something different — more to come).

The winds were finally a bit calmer tonight, and seeing was bouncing off 0.5″ for a while — but we still ended up with some clouds after midnight. Nothing too bad, but still a little frustrating.

Two days ago we had a song about a miracle. Here’s another one of sorts — though Johnny would disagree.

I saw the CDB live at the South Dakota State Fair. This was the encore, during Johnny’s solo the old man thrashed on a golden fiddle for 20 minutes.

Well, dear AO team, you finally entered to the final countdown, there are less than 10 days to leave “Las Campanas Observatory” just on time for Christmas, I guess.
I really hope that all the science you obtained, be the source of great discoveries, that will make your team proud, and also all of the ones that made your science possible.
I admire you Katie and Jared, you stay here more than 30 days it is hard to believe, but I guess easier with so nice company as the Magellan Operators ;), and of course the very nice food! Specially empanadas!!!

Good Luck

See you the last night.

One of the downsides of observational astronomy is the lack of control we have over our experiments. It’s just annoying that we can’t re-create star and planet formation in our laboratories and observe the evolution of planetary systems over billions of years. And then on top of that, we have to deal with the epitomy of the unpredictable and uncontrollable — the weather! I think this accounts for the rather superstitious way that astronomers, not generally given to magical thinking, talk about the weather. I remember hearing that one should always walk around the telescope catwalk clockwise (or was it counterclockwise? Luckily the point is moot here at Magellan where the catwalk doesn’t go all the way around.) to keep away the clouds. We joke about the colleagues who are “weather curses” and seem to always bring the clouds with them.

We can’t even enjoy all the wildflowers up here without seeing them as evidence that El Niño is out to get us. Out for a walk earlier today, in the glorious sunshine of a clear blue sky, I still managed to scowl at the butterflies.

Tonight was the 8th night of Chanukah. Alas, there was no meteorological miracle. The winds only came below our AO-secondary-imposed 20 mph limit for a couple hours before returning to sit at about 20 mph and taunt me:

So, last night’s incongruous song involved sharks, among other things. And sharks reminded me of the TV show “Shark Tank” for entrepreneurial products, and one of their successful products was a Chanukah Christmas tree topper, which brings me to the fact that tonight is the final night of Chanukah. Wait, you didn’t like that link, ok, here’s LL Cool J telling you to do a mitzvah (good deed) this Chanukah and support the “I have a Dream Foundation.” Satisfied by the link to Chanukah? Good. Tonight’s song is: All About that Neis – Hanukkah by the Maccabeats. Neis means miracle, though not of the meteorological type. And it’s a parody, so it gives fond memories of previous years’ song rules.

Hello Everyone,

Having just finished up three nights over in Baade, the MagAO team has very hospitably welcomed me (Kate R.) as their guest tonight.  As you may have heard, last night didn’t go so well, giving Katie and me the opportunity to poke around in the Baade dome at 1am:

 

Fortunately, today the clouds have slowly dissipated, although not before painting us a beautiful sunset:

Just after sunset, Katie took me into Clay, and showed me the MagAO team’s handiwork.  Although I wasn’t sure how to feel about the LEDs on back of their secondary poking out of the dome in the middle of the night, altogether it was an impressive sight.  Made me wish I were one of these cool instrument builders myself!

Anyway, after the tour we had a quick Hanukah Baruch by Alycia:

And then it was down to business.  Actually, there was some waiting around as those clouds moved along, but my understanding is that there has been serious data collection happening for several hours now.  (I must admit to being a bit distracted by my own data as all of this was going on.)

Re: tonight’s musical selection, I must first offer my sympathies to any of you who may have found yourselves tricked into watching Kate F.’s video.  One of the many confusing aspects of that selection was the incongruity of the music and the stark gas station / desert setting.  I obviously didn’t understand the lyrics, but the melody reminded me of 5th grade choir.  Working with that theme, I googled “incongruous music videos”, and this was the top hit:

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

I’m headed out tomorrow, but it was a great privilege and great fun to be able to join the MagAO party this week!  Here’s wishing them the clearest of skies and the best of seeing for the rest of 2015B.